My bio does not mention me as having a horse but my avatar is my second horse Stella.

I believe, in a caring way, she looks like a tart. That is not an insult to the 95% of members I have been told are women. Tartyness to me is not a streetwalker type person, it is a look, and attitude, and Stella has that look and attitude, which I describe as tarty.

Now that I may have crawled out of the hole I dug for myself my purpose is to prompt thought and maybe discussion provided I can remember how I managed to start this thread/post or whatever it is and all while my wife is cooking me a nice dinner.

(I heard that, I am not a male chovenist pig) see I can't be one, I can't even spell it.)

Horses
We humans jump on their backs, and sit in the predators killing position, kick them in the ribs somtimes with spurs and they alow us to be there. We are the apex predator, we kill for sport and food.
The horse has had millions of years of evolution honing its survival skill yet with little encouragement it will allow a human to sit on its back and direct its movment. Have you analised what that really means in the form of attachment between the horse and humans. I have heard people refer to their horse as, its just a horse. I now, don't subscribe to that attitude towards my, or any horse how about you.

No! I do not! My horse is my friend and partner! And I also was thinking this the other day! You seem like the type of person who would enjoy this observation! I was wondering WHO in their right minds (or what were they smoking/drinking/insert a brain inhibiting drug here?) thought "Check out that huge hoofed thing! It could probably crush me in a second.....Im gonna go get on its back, and steer it around!"

Because of my career, I've always been very interested in domestication of animals and particularly horses. I do appreciate the emotional elements of this discussion, and don't want to hijack that element, but thought I would talk about horse domestication.

During the Pleistocene (over 10,000 years ago) in Europe (and North America), horses were undoubtedly food resources that were actively hunted. Current research indicates horses were first domesticated on the Eurasian Steppe (probably the Botai culture of northern Kazakhstan), although molecular evidence indicates that there were multiple events of domestication (i.e., one group didn't do it first and all other domestic horses come from that one group). Another factor that confuses this is that prehistoric breeders (just like more modern breeders) probably used wild stock for breeding with domestic animals.

Horses were the last of the common Old World livestock to be domesticated (sheep, cows, pigs, etc.)

Work in 1988 (Forsten) suggests all modern domestic horses originate from Equus ferus a small statured European equid. Przewalski horses (E. przewalski) have a different chromosome count (2n=66) compared to domestic horses (2n=64), meaning they are not the progeneter of modern domestic horses.

Some authors have theorized that, in fact, nomadic tribes captured wild individuals tamed and broke them, without ever moving into full domestication. The advantage being the individual doesn't have to do much husbandry except for the working horse (no foals, no pregnant mares, etc.). Regardless, initial domestication probably focused on using the horses as primarily food, with transportation forming a secondary use.

Archaeological evidence shows an increase in horse remains from Eurasian sites at about 6,000 Years before present (YBP) that may be linked to initial domestication. Dental wear evidence from these populations may indicate some of these horses were ridden (6,000 years ago). [Interestingly, donkeys were domesticated well after horses, with some evidence from the Sudan at 5,000 YBP and good evidence from Syria at 4,300 YBP].

Domestication of horses, initially for meat, milk and leather, may have required use of horses for their husbandry, but it also resulted in major changes to the societies. Being able to move over more territory, faster, and to carry supplies, led to expansion of cultures. Horse domestication has been argued to have played a key role in the expansion of Indo-European languages (the ancestors to English, German, Greek, etc.) from the Iberian Peninsula to India (although other authors maintain domestic crops were the impetus for the language migration).

There are over 170 horse and pony breeds today. Researchers suggest that stallions were moved and traded, but the "native" broodmares were the foundation of Eurpoean and Asian horse breeding. If true, this would assist in the genetic identification of the origin of horse breeds; however, the record actually reflects that extensive translocation of horses from one region to another have occurred. Viking horses (1,000 to 2,000 years old) from around the Baltic Sea indicate that at that time genetic variability was very large within domestic horses.

Within breeds, there are microsatellite genetic markers that allow distinction of the breeds with a high degree of accuracy. However, this appears to be related to paternal DNA (the stallion) and breeding within a breed, rather than maternal elements.

As an interesting statistic, there are approximately 300,000 thoroughbreds worldwide, but genetic evidence suggests 95% are from a single founding stallion, and 10 founding mares account for 72% of maternal lineages.

My reply to the comments on Predator on my back.
Humans are the apex predator. One of the distingushing features of a land based predator is, its eyes are in the front of its head. That allows that animal to judge distance. Humans still eat horses don't they.

Throughout history no animal has killed on the scale of the human animal. We are without a doubt the apex predator.

Canyon cowboy, a great history insight
Wheatermay, your inner thought on the horse show, but then so do mine.
AlexS, Alpha horse, only when the horse we are riding allowes us to be. If we cannot protect the horse in a percieved situation then self preservation takes over with the horse just as it does with us. If we are hungry and the horse was all that was left what would we do.
I wait for further responce and comment on all I said

Thanks to those I have not mentioned. But, no one answered my question.

Hi Saddlebag, Why do I want to catch those blasted carrots.
They move slower than my horse Savannah and I thought I stood a better chance. I was wrong. And there is also the night vision thing.
On a more serious note. It annoys the hell out of me to think I can't catch a carrot.

The blasted carrots, they pop up on the screen off their own accord and you slam dunk them into the basket. Occasionally you get a pop up offers you the opportunity to steal someone else's carrots, you will likely be unsuccessful because it just seems to like to tease you that way.

AlexS, Alpha horse, only when the horse we are riding allowes us to be. If we cannot protect the horse in a percieved situation then self preservation takes over with the horse just as it does with us. If we are hungry and the horse was all that was left what would we do.

Yes, we are the alpha because the horse permits it, (or sometimes under abuse/beatings it will fear us). However I don't think many of us would be riding a horse that didn't allow us to be alpha, we might try for a while - but then we would attempt to retrain them from the ground up before attempting to get back on.

I'd absolutely eat my horse if my life depending on it, however I'd likely go for the husband first, he has more to him than my slim TB.

About the carrots.. I have just figured out how to play the game. When you are in a thred do you see a thing called the "Carrot Locater"? It looks like a little game boy thing. It will look like it's loading and then a thing will pop up and say "Horse Riding" or "Tack and Hardware", different categories on the forum. When you see that game boy thing say "Horse Riding" (or whatever) you have to hurry and get to that page as fast as you can. There will be a banner across the top that says "catch the carrot" and you click on the "catch" button. Or, like Alex said. They will pop up on your screen and you click and drag them into the basket...Sometimes you'll catch it. That's how I've gotten mine..Beware the Carrot Bandit though, he steals your carrots back.

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